


Cycle Break

by SkullPuppy



Category: South Park
Genre: Crenny, Death, Depression, Drug Use, Hell, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Rating May Change, Sort of? - Freeform, Weirdly Canon Compliant AU, creek - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-05-31 04:04:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15111437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkullPuppy/pseuds/SkullPuppy
Summary: What kind of a name is Tweek? That's a question most normal people would ask themselves, but South Park never has been normal. It's easy to get away with anything in this town without a single person batting an eye. Parents can send their kids off into the wilderness to live with Mongolians. A giant mechanized version of an old celebrity can rampage through the town. So, really, it wasn't that hard for Tweek to just show up in class one day at eight years old, hair tussled into a mess and fidgeting nervously. Hell, even when his exact copy came walking into class with only a different outfit and hair style to differentiate them... no one seemed to notice.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The prologue and flashback chapters will be a lot shorter than the actual main chapters so expect longer ones for the main story!!  
> This is my first fic ever so please be gentle with me.

When he woke up that morning, he could feel that it was going to be one of _those_ days. He always can sort of tell when it’s coming. There’s something about the air, or the way his toes tingle as he walks across the old rotten floorboards of his bedroom. It pulls a sigh from him, fingers curling around the orange parka he wears every single day. He can feel his nerves twisting up already. Dying _hurts_ and he doesn’t understand why it’s always him. Why does it have to be him? Why can’t someone else do it? Why can’t someone at least _remember?_ Not even his own parents ever seem to notice, even when he’s gone for long periods of time.  
  
They don’t say anything when he walks past them through the kitchen either, not to him anyway. They’re too caught up in their own bickering, too concerned with themselves to know their own son was going to die today. He doesn’t bother with breakfast, it won’t last in him anyway today so it’s better to just leave whatever little they have for Karen or Kevin.

Kenny lets the gnawing in his gut distract him from the ever increasing anxiety crawling up his spine. Waiting might be the second worst part of these days, right after the death itself… maybe the worst if it’s an instant death. The sounds of Stan, Kyle, and Eric talking at the bus stop that day are just a dull buzzing in his ears. He can’t make himself listen or weigh in, but luckily they’re used to him being rather quiet some days. Always these days.

It’s just not _fair._ He’d just come back a few days ago from being essentially blended to death by Stan’s demon fish. Usually he can go a month or more without a dying, but these ones that are so soon really fuck him up. He evidently has nearly all day to think about how unfair it is, because nothing happens the entire school day. Garrison drones on and the other boys mess around and Kenny lives. It’s only when they leave the school and head for the movies that something finally happens.

Kenny notices too late that when the light changed to let them cross the street, his friends didn’t follow him onto the road. He has a fraction of a second where he turns his head to see the car speeding toward him, and for once he decides he doesn’t want to freeze up and just take this. He does something that he rarely ever tries. He bolts, little feet striking the pavement in an attempt to dodge the car. He almost thinks it works, until the car swerves back toward him.  
  
_What the hell?_ The thought crosses his mind right before the car clips him hard. He was still running, still trying to escape his fate, and somehow that stops it from hitting him head on. He still goes flying from the force, slamming his skull into the wall of the cafe next to the theatre with a sickening sound that immediately makes everything go black the same way it always does.  
  
...Several hours later that same day and much to his surprise, Kenny McCormick wakes up with a throbbing headache, several cracked ribs, and broken arm in a room he doesn’t recognize.


	2. Chapter 1: Not-Kenneth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a new kid in class.

Fingernails chewed short drum on the surface of the counter as the morning rush filters through the coffee shop. Tweek’s sleepless eyes stay trained on the glass door, desperate for the minute hand to finish its cycle. Two minutes. 

Years of practice leaves the shakey seventeen year old breaking far fewer mugs than he did in his childhood, a fact that his father makes a point to underhandedly praise him for. He doesn't take it well. It rings in his ears as a reminder of past failures rather than current successes, and considering it's been months since he last broke anything he's sure it was malicious.

Man, he can't wait to get out of here.

Tik, tok, tik, tok the clock goes until finally, finally, it hits the number he was waiting for. He belts out, in a voice practiced to be higher than natural for him, “It’s time for school!” and barely stops himself from vaulting over the counter. He moves around it instead, the more fun option too dangerous, as his father comes out from the back to take over. 

He snags the backpack he’d left at the edge of the counter and rushes out onto the sidewalk. Never, never the street. His hand subconsciously brushes the old scar on his arm every time he sees the road out in front of the coffee shop. Blue-green eyes dart away from the pavement and he hurries himself along across town.

Except, the moment he rounds the corner of his usual route, something is different. He thinks it’s Craig, for a fraction of a second. Dark hair, and intense bored eyes belonging to the guy he nearly slammed into- but Craig hasn’t met him on the way to school since freshman year and these eyes aren’t the cold stormy grey he knows. These eyes burn unnaturally red.

He looks familiar, but Tweek can’t place it. The guy blinks at him slowly, then tilts his head to the side, and greets him. “Hello, Kenneth.”

Tweek’s heart rockets into his shoes.

The blond inhales sharply, nine and a half fingers coming up in front of him to wave in a way that matches his sudden outburst of, “What?! No! No, no no. No. I’m not- Kenny lives on the other end of town, man, I think you’ve got- got some bad information or something.”  
He moves to step around the guy, having very very little interest in sticking around. A goth kid looking for Kenny for some reason, he guesses? He’s not sure. Karen did start hanging around with them way back, afterall. He doesn’t give the guy time to answer, instead bailing for the school at top speeds.

When Tweek bursts in the doors of his classroom, out of breath and slightly early, only a few people are there. Wends and a couple of their friends. They give Tweek a friendly wave immediately, not really concerned with his sudden burst in. It’s kind of a standard entrance for him at this point. He throws up a hand for them briefly, before slumping down into his desk, forehead pressed against the cold cheap wood.

This thing is probably fucking filthy.

He stays there, though. Catching his breath and reeling over this morning’s event in his head. He doesn’t register the rest of the class slowly filtering in, or see the worried glance Craig throws him before taking his seat with Clyde (Token and Jimmy having a different homeroom). Tweek doesn’t register their homeroom teacher coming in, or calling the new presence in the room to the front. He doesn’t hear her introduce the new student, or explain that he’s transferring to Park County High. 

Tweek doesn’t notice any of this, until the usually empty seat next to him is suddenly filled, and the not-quite-normal voice from this morning fills his ears again in nearly the exact same way but quieter, for only his ears.

“Hello, Not-Kenneth.”

Tweek barely stifles his startled shriek from barking out throughout the homeroom. Everyone’s started chattering, waiting for the first period bell, so he swivels in his chair to the same guy he nearly ran into earlier. “Who the fuck are you, man??? What do you want??” It’s an uphill battle to keep his voice level.

It’s now that he notes everything about this guy, right down to the way he moves, is unnatural. It’s like he doesn’t know what to do with his own body. All of his movements are hesitated and thought out before they happen. Tweek furrows his eyebrows watching him debate his answer.

“Did you not hear the teacher? I’m Damien Thorn.” The guy- Damien’s- voice has this tinge to it that Tweek can’t put his finger on. It takes him a moment before he remembers, all those years ago- third grade. The Anti-Christ.

Damien obviously takes note of Tweek’s sudden frozen state, and he waves a hand in front of Tweek’s face. “Hello? Traditionally when someone introduces themself, you do the same, correct? Of course, I know who you are, but if you’re not keen on being called by your name then I can’t predict what your preferred alias is.”  
Tweek forces himself to breathe past the lump in his throat as the information sinks in. He knows who he is. He wrings his hands together in a futile attempt to still his sudden jitters. “Tweek.”

Damien fucking cackles, which makes Tweek snap, “Fuck you! What??”

The half-demon’s face sets back into its blank state. “Oh, you’re serious. Wow, okay. Well, I’m not going to call you that.”

Tweek’s hands drag down his face, teeth grinding together. What the hell does this mean?? He sure as fuck doesn’t know. This whole conversation is a mess and he needs to get to the bottom of it. Luckily, the bell rings, so Tweek grabs Damien’s wrist and almost literally drags him out into the hall, and down to the doors until he’s tugged the other guy out to the empty side of the school. Now, now he can investigate this. It kind of pisses him off how unphased Damien seems by dragging him out here, like he knows exactly what’s going on. Fuck.

“What the fuck do you think you know??” Tweek’s line of questioning is pretty straight-forward, and Damien looks amused. His face twists up into a grin filled with fangs that makes the blond’s blood run cold.

“Everything, of course,” When Tweek blanks at him, Damien decides to be so kind as to elaborate, “You’re Kenneth, the original. The one I turned into a Platypus, and the one that escaped.”

Tweek feels himself start to sweat, and Damien circles him like vulture, “I can see your soul, Kenneth. I can see who you are. What I can’t figure out is why. Why are you defying death herself? Why are you resisting your fate? Why are you hiding?” He pauses in front of Tweek, “And how?”

Tweek’s fingers knit into his hair as he hears his jaw pop from the sheer force of how hard he’s locked it. He grounds himself with the pain, shutting his eyes tightly before he finds the will to respond. When he’s got enough of a handle on himself, he launches forward and grips the collar of Damien’s shirt. He shakes him, something that Damien again irritatingly seems entirely unphased by.

“YOU CAN’T TELL ANYONE!!!” He hits a shrill octave he wasn’t even aware he was capable of. He thinks he sees a flicker of Damien flinching and feels mildly victorious. “You can’t!! You can’t. I don’t want to die again! I don’t even know what’ll happen if I die again now!! If she finds out!! I can’t do it! I can’t, I can’t, I was losing my mind. Don’t tell anyone.”

Damien pulls Tweek’s hands from his shirt collar, then brushes his collar off casually like Tweek is dirty. “Fascinating.” When his dull eyes meet Tweek’s intense ones, he grins again, “Okay. Color me interested. I want to see how this works. All of your friends, your real family, you left everyone behind. And they don’t recognize you?” He doesn’t give Tweek a chance to answer, “...No. Of course they don’t, look at you. You’ve altered yourself just enough to squeak by, and your replacement is always covered.” He laughs, “Oh, this is going to be fun.”


End file.
